The study recommends strategic short-term emergency interventions and medium- and long-term interventions that focus on structural change and improving governance.

a. Emergency measures: overcome the vulnerability context
Efforts should be made to stabilize and improve food production and monitoring of the evolution of access to food for vulnerable groups. Proposed actions are as follows:

• implement a food security and nutrition early warning system through upscaling the Ministry of Health programme for the screening and management of severe and acute malnutrition in children;

• implement a large emergency school feeding programme targeting – as a matter of priority –vulnerable and lower-middle-class children;

• implement cash transfer programmes, as part of a social safety initiative to mitigate the effects of the crisis and the upcoming transition period, especially in terms of food security; and

• ensure the short-term provision of agriculture inputs, within a strategy to rationalize input use through training on good agricultural practices.

b. Medium-term: improve farmers’ human and financial capital

In the medium term, the Government should improve the production environment, increase access to inputs, financing, and extension services, and support the creation and empowerment of farmers’ cooperatives and clusters. Particular attention should be paid to farmers’ human and financial capital by doing the following:

• supporting farmers’ human capital through the development of efficient extension services that promote sustainable input use, the introduction of and access to new technology, such as improved seeds varieties, improved irrigation methods, and climate-smart and renewable energy solutions; and

• supporting farmers’ capacity for investment through adapted grant and loans schemes.

c. Long-term: reform the governance of the food system

In the long term, the government should improve the legal framework, and set out to increase the productivity and financial return on farming activities caused by structural problems in
the agriculture sector and unfair value chain dynamics. This includes steps to do the following:

• review and implement territorial strategy and action plans;

• develop and implement an environmental and climate change strategy;

• reform the institutional setting of the food system;

• create a legal framework to formalize agricultural work; and

• enact anti-trust laws specific to the agriculture sector.